March 25, 2024 - 4:45pm

→ Farmer protests hit Westminster

For those in Westminster hoping to get a bit of countryside air this Easter week, there’s no need to leave SW1: the farmers will be coming straight to you. Between 50-100 tractors will descend on Parliament Square this evening, gathering from across the country and making the pilgrimage which will start in New Covent Garden Market.

The protestors have three main demands according to Farmers Weekly: a ban on cheaper alternatives to British food being imported, a ban on packaging deemed “dishonest”, and the launch of a national food plan to combat bad trade deals. The demonstration follows a spate of similar protests in Europe, where there have been clashes with riot police, tyre fires and even deaths. Just the quiet send-off MPs will want before recess…

→ Is Andrew Huberman the new Jordan Peterson?

After Jordan Peterson’s meteoric rise to fame, it was not long before everything else followed: the fans, the accolades — and, of course, the hit pieces. Now, something similar appears to be happening with neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, whose hit podcast has put a target on his back. In the latest New York magazine story, writer Kerry Howley spends 8,000 words making one huge, scandalous discovery: an unmarried podcaster from California is not faithful to his girlfriend. Whether Huberman’s alleged infidelity will affect his academic reputation remains unlikely, but expect to see a lot more pieces like this as his popularity grows.

→ Mexican President accuses US of having drug problem

As America’s opioid crisis intensifies, criticism is coming from an unlikely source: Mexico. Mexican President Andrés Manual Lopez Obrador, speaking to CBS yesterday, attempted to take a moral stand on illegal drugs, claiming that his country did not have such high levels of consumption because it has “customs and traditions” without the problem of the “disintegration of the family”. AMLO claimed that the problem of fentanyl production was shared between the US, Mexico and Canada, but that his nation’s strong value system was the reason for its comparatively low rate of drug use.

What Obrador neglected to mention however, was that a recent Reuters report found that drug-taking in Mexico is sharply on the rise. While the country still doesn’t have the consumption levels of the US, the prevalence of drugs is reportedly increasing due to unsold excess product not making it into the US and being sold cheaply in Mexico. AMLO might bear in mind that people in glass houses shouldn’t get stoned…